Most people don’t know this, but Van Gogh checked himself into the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum because he had a breakdown. It’s where he painted The Starry Night. He had iron bars on his window, but he just imagined that they weren’t there and painted everything around them. So when you looked at his most famous painting, with its dark sky and swirls of light, you didn’t know that, deep down, he was secretly trapped.

I lead Nathan to this other table that’s covered with more of Al’s paintings. I try my hardest to keep cool, but I can feel myself starting to sweat with nerves. It’s not bad nervous. More the kind of nerves you feel when you’re about to go on one of those proper fast rides at the fair. It’s weird, but the more I see Nathan, the more I stop thinking of him in terms of Al. I’ve started to see him as just Nathan now, not Al’s brother. I don’t have to say which painting it is cos he spots it straight away.

For a minute, he looks like he might cry. Then he moves closer to the table, before leaning over and touching the edge of the painting. He runs his finger across the tail of the comet in the corner. Then he turns to face me, but it’s like he can’t look at me properly.

‘I remember that night,’ he says. ‘Me and Al were just sitting there. It was after our dad walked out and I was proper upset. Angry. Al took me up there, and he told me it would get better. That I should look at all those stars burning brightly, at how beautiful they were. Then some bellend went and called the police, said we were tryna break in and that. That we were tryna steal stuff from the boxing gym.’ Nathan shakes his head. ‘And, when Al said we were just looking at the stars, you know wot they said?’

I shrug. ‘What?’

‘That they didn’t believe us cos people around here don’t look at stars, they burn down buildings. They mug people, they beat them up. But no one from our estate ever climbs on the roof of some building cos they wanna look at the sky.’

I pull a face. ‘Can’t believe they said that.’

Nathan shrugs. ‘I can,’ he says. ‘Al was proper upset by it at first. He said that people never gave us a chance cos of where we come from. That they probably wouldn’t expect us to go on and do anything. But that he was gonna prove them all wrong . . .’ He looks down at the floor again. ‘I’m probably gonna get suspended over that fight with Jeremiah. But I just wanted to see you first . . .’

I feel myself go red again, but then my heart sinks. If Nathan wasn’t going to be here, it meant that I wouldn’t see him for ages and he’d started to be the only good thing about school.

‘You’ll be at Al’s exhibition, though, won’t you?’ I ask. ‘I’ll let you know when it is.’

Nathan nods. ‘I wouldn’t miss it,’ he says. ‘This’ll be you soon, with your own exhibition. Someone putting all your paintings up and that.’

I laugh even though I desperately want that to be true.

‘Just don’t go forgetting us when you’re famous and that,’ he says.

‘As if,’ I say. ‘D’you not know me at all by now?’

Nathan moves closer to me and I can see the tops of his ears have gone a bit red.

‘Megs,’ he says, ‘I know I probably won’t be in school for a bit and that, and I know that you can’t talk to me about all that clever stuff, like you used to with Al. But . . .’

I look at him and try not to think ahead. But – what? But – what? He looks around again, and I can see that he’s starting to go even redder.

‘I just wondered—’ His phone vibrates in his pocket. Nathan pulls it out and stares down at the screen. ‘Shit,’ he says. ‘I’m gonna have to go. My mum’s gonna go spare at me for running off. She’s already on one . . .’

I try not to laugh. ‘I’ll see you later,’ I say.

‘In a bit,’ he says, and he rushes off towards the other end of the art room, his trainers making this sharp, scuffing sound on the floor. But he turns round, just before he’s about to leave, and he says: ‘I’ll message you on Insta later. Don’t keep me hanging, Megs. Make sure you message back.’

‘I won’t,’ I say back.

Nathan smiles and heads out of the door. But his words are still there, echoing round my head, long after he’s left: ‘Don’t keep me hanging, Megs.’